CREDIT: CLAUS ANDERSEN / GETTY IMAGES SPORT / THINKSTOCK
Similar to the Toronto Maple Leaf's ability to fix something when it's broken, the Conservative Party will have to follow suit.

After a crushing defeat the analysis is quick to follow. Figuring out exactly what went wrong and how to fix it is something the Toronto Maple Leafs have become adept at over the years, and now it's time for the Conservative Party to follow suit.

The 2015 federal election was a textbook case of strategic voting by Canadians. Although the Conservative Party lost 67 seats, the NDP also suffered a huge loss in their support base.

Rather than risk splitting the vote, Canadians voted overwhelmingly to elect a majority Liberal government.

The first-past-the-post electoral system has strategic voting built into its very fabric. Although it facilitates a classic “majority wins” system made popular by groups trying to decide on a restaurant, anyone who has been stuck eating at Crabby Joe's knows the pain of injustice.

The Conservative Party is still trying to deal with the post-election fallout under the interim leadership of former health minister Rona Ambrose.

When it comes to rebuilding a party, the hardest part can be dealing with the rubble. The party is in a difficult position because their incumbent MPs represent people who support Harper's vision. The path forward must appeal to those who didn't support his vision without alienating those who did.

The federal election results were an indication that the Conservative message failed to resonate with the majority of Canadians, including a sizable portion of the traditional conservative base. It's critical that the Conservative Party use the next year to identify the core values that were responsible for their previous success.

Canadian politics is a moderate game. There would be hell to pay if a contender for party leadership were to spout the vitriolic rhetoric coming out of the Republican race south of the border. Despite vicious attacks on the Harper government's policies, he would be considered a liberal by U.S. standards. The Conservative Party is a far cry from the Republican Party, but they must reinvent themselves in such a way that they can embrace social liberalism without losing their foundation of fiscal conservatism. Despite a campaign that prioritized national security, their campaign slogan might as well have been “More of the Same”.

Part of the challenge for the PC's will be finding new blood. The vast majority of their presence in the House of Commons has been there before, in some cases for over a decade.

There's a certain trajectory to political careers, if you haven't been a leadership candidate in the past it's much more difficult to make a run at the top job. The Conservatives will have to plumb their ranks to find someone with both name recognition and plausible deniability in regards to the leadership of Stephen Harper.

Politicos are speculating that the Conservative leadership race will take place in early 2017. With over a year to whittle down the list of candidates, the party will be spending a lot of that time trying to revamp their public image. Regardless of their timeline, chances are that Toronto will see a Conservative prime minister long before they see a Stanley Cup.
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